Names on a Map Quotes

“Daughters. They were sometimes as familiar and intimate as honeysuckles in bloom, but mostly daughters were mysteries. They lived in rooms you had long since abandoned and could not, did not, ever want to reenter.”
― Benjamin Alire Saenz, Names on a Map

“We lived in the same house. That much was true enough. But mostly we lived in our own particular and peculiar bodies. Bodies we didn't choose. We hear, we see, we smell, we feel with our eyes and noses, ears and hands. We have minds. We have hearts. We have mouths and tongues. That is all we have. That is the only way we know anything--the the smallness of our own insignificant bodies. And so we remain separate, residents of our own small, separate countries.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Names on a Map

“In one war, there are a thousand wars within that war--each one private, singular, inaccessible, a fragment, a piece of a larger whole, parallel yet forever separate. And all we do in life is struggle with our impoverished efforts to put our war into words. I don't believe most of us ever succeed in our translations. It's an art most of us never conquer. That's why we argue with one another. We're like countries--each of us clinging to our separate histories. We're fighting one another about our translations, about what really happened. Which is another kind of war.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Names on a Map

“I've learned a few things about ugly memories--they shoot through the heart like a bullet that maims and disfigures. A bullet that doesn't have the decency to kill.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Names on a Map

“There are days when I almost forget that I fought in that war. It was such a long time ago. I was young, so young, so fucking young. And all that's left of my youth is in my head. You know, the head, it's like a map. Not a map that gives you directions, but a map with names on it–names of guys who were killed in the war, names of the people you left behind, names of countries and villages and cities. Names. After all these years, that's all that's left. Names. But no directions. And no way to reach them, no way to get back what you lost.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Names on a Map